This invention relates generally to printer driver architectures, and more particularly to a printer driver configured to generate an improved output document.
An important objective in many computer systems is the generation of printed documents having high quality images. Critical components in obtaining these documents are the computer printer and printer driver of the computer system. A host computer system includes printer driver software and associated hardware with print data, which is provided to a peripheral printer in an appropriate format for the generation of an output document. As the availability and sophistication of color monitors and color printers has increased, it is common for a computer user to create a full-color image on the color monitor, such as by using desktop publishing software, and then print a full-color printout of the image on a color printer. It is known, however, that color printers and color monitors use different techniques for the formation of color documents. Particularly, a color monitor forms colors by additive light processing in which light from three color primaries, generally red, green and blue (RGB) are added. On the other hand, printed images reflect ambient light. Therefore, printed images generate colors by a subtractive light processing method generally using the colors cyan, magenta, yellow and black (CMYK).
Additive color formation and subtractive color formation have fundamental distinctions, and the range of colors which are displayable on a monitor will be different from the range of colors which may be printable by a printer. In other words, the range or xe2x80x9cgamutxe2x80x9d of colors displayable by a monitor and the range or xe2x80x9cgamutxe2x80x9d of colors which are printable by a printer do not have a one-to-one match. Because of these differences it is often difficult to print color images which are perceived as accurate reproductions of displayed color images. Specifically, it is not possible for a printer to generate colors formed on a monitor which are outside of the printable gamut of the printer. Therefore, even though colors may be seen on color monitors, they cannot necessarily be printed on a color printer, since the color printer will not have the range of print capabilities as may be defined by the monitor. Similarly, there are also some low saturation areas of a printer gamut wherein a printed image, which is light subtractive, has a greater color range than a monitor.
However, there are many situations in which a user creates a document for one purpose and it is then printed in a way other than intended. Often these documents have been sent electronically to another person who has a different printer or intends to use the document differently from the creator. One such example of this is dark color slides which are printed on paper or transparencies. While dark colors on the color slides may be desirable when projected, if the images on those slides are then printed onto paper or transparencies, it would result in excessive and undesirable use of ink or toner and the resulting image would be difficult to view. There also exist situations where a document is created with color images, but is printed in black and white. For the dark color areas on the original color document, the translation to a black and white document may not be effective, creating a large stress factor on the printer by using up large amounts of toner or ink and resulting in hard to distinguish images.
Because printing very high area coverages is difficult and costly either xerographically, with ink jets or other types of printers, it is preferable to use white or pale backgrounds for documents to be printed onto paper or transparencies. Documents intended to be used for slides are expected to be projected directly or created photographically and tend to have very dark backgrounds for ease of reading. The documents having such images are of a high quality when projected onto a screen or viewed on the monitor. However, as previously noted when these slides are then printed on paper or transparencies, a large stress on the printer exists and large amounts of ink or toner are used up, often leading to unattractive and/or illegible results. The present invention addresses the foregoing problems.
In accordance with the present invention, a printer driver is disclosed which includes a document identifier for identifying a document which is to be sent to a printer for printing. A recommendation module is provided, and includes a plurality of available modifications which may be made to the document to be printed. The system may operate in at least one of a manual mode, where modifications to the document are made based on a user selection prior to printing, an interactive mode, where proposed modifications are automatically generated by the printer driver and approved by the user prior to printing, and an automatic mode, where modifications are automatically generated and approved by the printer driver without interaction with the user, prior to printing.
In accordance with another aspect of the present invention, an intelligent printer driver is provided, wherein the printer driver includes a printer detector to detect characteristics of a printer which will be used to generate a document, in a case where the driver is not for a specific printer. Also included is a document detector which detects the content of the document to be printed, and a compatibility determination module which compares the characteristics of the printer and the contents of the document. The compatibility determination module is used to determine whether the printer and the content of the document are compatible or incompatible. Further included is a notification module which generates and issues a notification to a user when it is determined that the printer and the document are non-compatible. When non-compatibility is determined, the recommendation module provides recommendations for modification of the document determined to be mismatched. The recommendation module is used in this manner when the printer driver is operating under its interactive mode. In the manual mode, available modifications are presented without the necessity of the printer driver making a determination of compatibility or incompatibility. In the automatic mode, modifications are made to the document to be printed without user interaction.